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Sovereignty, Internationalism, and the Chinese In-Between

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Sovereignty, Internationalism, and the Chinese In-Between The U.S. Congress established the East-West Center in 1960 to foster mutual understanding and coopera- tion among the governments and peoples of the Asia Pacific region including the United States. Funding for the Center comes from the U.S. govern- ment with additional support provided by private agencies, individuals, corporations, and Asian and Pacific governments. East-West Center Working Papers are circulated for comment and to inform interested colleagues about work in progress at the Center. For more information about the Center or to order publications, contact: Publication Sales Office East-West Center 1601 East-West Road Honolulu, Hawaii 96848-1601 Telephone: 808-944-7145 Facsimile: 808-944-7376 Email: [email protected] Website: www.EastWestCenter.org EAST-WEST CENTER WORKING PAPERS International Graduate Student Conference Series No. 2, 2004 Sovereignty, Internationalism, and the Chinese In-Between Matthew Erie Matthew Erie is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology, Cornell University. He can be reached at [email protected]. This paper was presented at the 3rd East-West Center International Graduate Student Conference, February 19-21, 2004 in Honolulu, Hawaii. East-West Center Working Papers: International Graduate Student Conference Series publishes graduate students' research in progress. This paper has been peer-reviewed. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Center. Please direct orders and requests to the East-West Center's Publication Sales Office. The price for Working Papers is $3.00 each plus shipping and handling. Sovereignty, Internationalism, and the Chinese In-Between Matthew S. Erie Abstract This paper is premised on the idea that in order for such development projects as the UN Millennium Development Goals, and especially development in Asia, to take root in both the policies of national governments and in the national imaginary of the citizenry, there must be an existing viable notion of the “global community.” Arguing mainly from anthropological theory, but also drawing on political science, history, and legal studies, this paper considers the various institutional as well as the affective mechanisms that allow individuals to transcend allegiance to the nation-state to access transnational civil society. The case of the People’s Republic of China is analyzed to demonstrate the ways in which sovereignty, as cornerstone of Chinese nationalism and linchpin of the state system itself, is being challenged by various forces of economic, legal, political, and cultural globalization. The paper concludes that it is the changing ontological terrain of the concept of sovereignty which engenders a new calculus of political power.† † Paper was presented on 20 February, 2004, at the Third East-West Center International Graduate Student Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. The author would like to thank Viranjini Munasinghe for her comments on an earlier draft. 1 Introduction Writing in 1957, Edward Shils contended that contemporary society exhibited manifold personal attachments, whether civil, professional, or primordial, and that these bonds knitted society together. Shils further remarked that these attachments were characterized by immediate, familiar, and proximal relations. This paper takes as its point of departure a revision of Shils. Nearly a half-century after the publication of “Primordial, Personal, Sacred and Civil Ties,” we can see that in today’s increasingly shrinking world, what is now considered proximal or personal often originates half a world away. While globalization has intensified religious fundamentalism, ethnic strife, and wars, both holy and unholy, it has also increased contact and understanding across cultural divides. This latter phenomenon, the possibility for an international solidarity and particularly the ways in which the individual accesses the global community, are considered here from a multi-disciplinary perspective that incorporates social anthropology, political science, and legal studies. The central premise of this argument is that for such development programs as the UN Millennium Goals1 to take root in both the policies of national governments and in the national imaginary of its citizenry, there must be a pre-existing sense of a viable international community. The theorization of an international community proceeds through a consideration of the interplay between individual and social structure, specifically, the individual’s relationship to the nation- state as the foundational unit of the international system. A consideration of structural changes occurring at the level of the nation-state finds that it is the changing ontology of sovereignty itself which facilitates individual access to civil society and “the global.” Lastly, the paper turns to the most unlikely of places to examine a case study of emergent forms of sovereignty – the People’s Republic of China, a nation-state known for its non-participation in the international community. Nevertheless, the study of China shows that the diffusion of sovereignty engenders new spaces for individuals to access global civil society and provides the framework for a new calculus of political power. 1 The UN Millennium Development Goals as stated in the Millennium Declaration (8 September 2000) focus on the “collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level. The goals are: the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education gender equality, reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing global partnerships for development. The latter includes open trading and financial systems with a particular concentration on the special needs of developing countries (quota-free access for exports, debt relief or sustainable debt, youth programs, pharmaceutical partnerships, and improved access to information and communication technologies) (UN Millennium Declaration). 2 I. “We are the World” To conceptualize the relationships between the individual person and larger social collectivities such as the nation and beyond, it is helpful to invoke Kenneth Waltz’s tripartite division of the individual, the nation-state, and the international system developed in his Man, the State, and War (1959). Waltz argues that second order images can be ignored and posits the systemic level as origin for the distribution of capabilities, the aggregations of distinct national powers such as the economic resources of subsidiaries of multinational corporations that are mobilized by states for various purposes (Caporaso 2000: 2). Although Waltz may have ultimately dismissed the level of the nation-state as primary actor in international relations and both producer and recipient of affective ties with individuals, nevertheless, the nation-state and its emotive corollaries of nationalism and patriotism has been a mainstay in the literature of political scientists and social historians. A cursory overview of some of the highlights of this literature shows that the question “why do people form attachments to their country?” has elicited, broadly speaking, a gradual agreement towards a constructivist perspective that see ties to the nation (“nationalism”) as a distinctly modern phenomenon which are generated by political elites (Geertz 1973; Gellner 1983; Hayes 1926; Hobsbawm 1992; Renan 1990; Weber 1994). It would seem, then, as for the attachment of the individual to the nation-state, that this is an affect of cultural construction often appropriated by political and intellectual elites. Nationalism, then, is not an organic, natural, or primordial sentiment, but rather a cultural construct. Internationalism, the attachment to the global community, also emerges as a result of social production.2 Individual identification with the international community can take two forms. The first occurs in terms of access to transnational forms of authority as nodes of international political power; this association occurs often when the nation-state itself has somehow infringed upon individual liberty and international authorities are perceived as superordinate adjudicators. The second form consists of the development of an actual community, a sense of cohesion or “we-ness” fostered by common goals and practices. This identification can take place vis-à-vis the nation-state (through, for instance, activist groups that seek to influence policy formation) or through involvement in activities that are not necessarily antithetical to states’ interests, and may be conducive to them, but which nevertheless transcend state territorial boundaries; international business communities and academic affiliations would be examples of this type. In 2 As will be shown below, these are not mutually exclusive attachments. 3 sum, both forms of identification with the international community comprise “global civil society.”3 Theorization of internationalism must take into consideration both the actions and attitudes of individual subjects and their social, political, and economic contexts within which they are situated. Although there are many vehicles of individual association with global civil society, two will be considered here: one that is roughly “subjective” and another which is instrumental. First, anthropologists and social historians have noted that people cultivate “multiple identities” in regards to their association with larger
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